Category: About Me

About Me

Mom Life

Autumn

Didn’t get enough sleep last night.

We’re still co-sleeping with the one-year-old, but she’s getting so wriggly that I’m starting to wake up in the middle of the night with her sprawled over my head. I know it’s time to move her out so I can catch up on my sanity, but that also means acknowledging that she’s not a tiny baby anymore. It’s emotional, so I haven’t brought myself to actually doing it yet.

Had an energy drink first thing in the morning. Too tired to make coffee. I know I shouldn’t make a habit out of it.

Wore all black, including an ankle-length circle skirt. Lots of eyeliner and mascara. I wondered why no one ever calls me goth.

Decided to take the kids out Halloween shopping. I call them my ducklings, because I love the way they naturally spread out when they follow me. This year we bought costumes. Normally I sew them myself, but… I’m tired.

Laughed at how much the kids loved to be scared of the decorations, and we found glow-in-the-dark spider web for the house. Two of them made up their minds quickly about what they wanted to be for Halloween. I felt a little vexed at my seven-year-old’s indecisiveness, as she switched between wanting to be a witch, a mermaid, and a unicorn. Thought about how, if I was sewing her a costume, she could be a witch-mermaid-unicorn. Felt guilty.

Walked to a nearby restaurant and shared a plate of teriyaki chicken and macaroni salad with the kids. I was amazed at how much they eat now. Seemed like it was just yesterday when I had to beg them to sit still and eat something, but today they were ravenous. Had a really pleasant time, and felt mostly awake. The children were astonishingly well-behaved and didn’t make much of a mess.

At home, I let the kids try on their new costumes and dance on the freshly painted floor. The previous owners of our house had painted the wood a hideous shade of taupe, and after a lot of deliberation and research, we decided to cover it up with enamel paint. Golden yellow. While we can walk on it, the paint still needs time to cure before we can put the furniture back, which leaves a nice big empty space for playing. The rest of the house is chaos.

Put the costumes away soon after, before they could get ripped or stained. I know my children well.

Screen time for the kids. Bathed the baby, and took care of the laundry. Apple slices and chocolate milk all around. Fatigue headache started setting in. Still not caught up on chores. Still need to go to the grocery store. Still haven’t done any “me” activities. Went for the Tylenol, but forgot to actually take it. I finally re-dressed the baby as the kids helped themselves to graham crackers. Crumbs were everywhere.

Finally took the Tylenol.

Kids get hyperactive as I lose attentiveness, and they start fighting with each other. That, in turn, makes my headache worse.

Hold out for my husband to get off work. Thank god for reinforcements.

He took the kids out to the grocery store so I could have a break. Afterwards I made a late dinner, and completely forgot to add any sort of spicing to the meat, including salt. My husband noticed, and corrected the mistake just in the nick of time. Made enchiladas.

My husband got a work-related phone call just as we sat down to eat, and I was back on my own. The kids ate everything except the tortilla, including the baby. I laughed because that’s exactly what my husband does, and they all take so much after their father. Realized I should have put in corn.

I had the kids brush their teeth and get ready for bed. Read a few pages of the Hobbit for their bedtime story. Got tongue-tied quite a lot because I was so tired. Kids didn’t seem to notice. Hugs, kisses, and I-love-yous all around. Bedtime is always the sweetest moment of the day.

Made it.

About Me

Anonymity

Autumn

I like anonymity.

At this point, I’ve received so many disparaging comments about wasting my life as a stay-at-home-mom, I don’t want people to think that there’s any hope for me.

As a woman, I don’t believe that I’m obligated to prove my value as a person through masculine evaluations of quantities and numbers. I am not defined by a paycheck. My worth is found in the joy and beauty I offer to the world, and that includes raising happy, well-adjusted children. God knows the world needs more happy, well-adjusted people in it.

So don’t chain me down with your money. *spits*

I get a perverse delight over how upset random strangers get when they learn that I don’t lift a finger to earn a dime. I love flaunting that I’m wasting my life and smratness right in their ugly little faces. Ooo! You can’t do a thing about it! Ha ha!

…

You’re all like, “What a second, don’t you self publish on Kindle?”

Yes, yes I do.

I’ve discovered that I struggle a huge amount with posting chapters weekly, even when the novel is completely finished and all I have to do is copy-n-paste. While I was contemplating what to do about this problem of mine, Kindle was the word that kept repeating over and over in my mind, so that was that.

ANYway, the problem is anonymity is that, while it protects me from people getting all pushy about monetizing and whatnot in real life, it also prevents me from doing other things. Like posting an author photo and utilizing YouTube.

I do want to find readers, and I like quirky methods.

I might shed the invisibility cloak soon. Tell my mom what I’m up to and all that.

But only because I love you and I want to find you. We’re kindred spirits, you and I.

About Me

Change in routine

Autumn

I had established the routine of replying to a writing prompt on Reddit every Monday morning, but frankly, I’m already feeling burnt out on Reddit.

The reason why it worked was because I had to get up earlier than usual on Monday, and had a decent hour of musing while waking up with coffee. However, that phase is probably over with for good, and I no longer have that space of time.

I’m just not an internet-oriented person. My idea of an afternoon well spent is finding cool mushrooms while out bike riding with the kids. I don’t do social media. I do real life. Call it a weakness.

I don’t actually have the patience to look through endless numbers of writing prompts. Not when I have a bunch of other things to do and an extra hour of sleep to work with.

Maybe some other routine will work itself out, but since being a Reddit celebrity doesn’t appeal to me all that much, I want to devote my free time to finishing my current novel-in-progress. You know, the one that I’ve been working on for over a year. Yeah, that one.

Truth be told, that novel is the reason why I started posting on Reddit in the first place. I WANT people to read it when its done, and I figured that I could use some more visibility to accomplish that goal. However, that just ain’t gonna happen if I never finish!

So, change in routine.

About Me

Pervy

Autumn

Like a lot of creative sorts, I have a pervy streak. Nothing that would shock grandma, but… you know, tee hee.

I always hold back, however; I have turned off countless movies and shows because of “3 edgy 5 u” sex scenes. Usually I assume that they’re trying to cover up how much the story sucks by distracting the audience with bouncing titties, especially if it happens during the first 20 minutes. And why is it always casual sex? Srsly, not sexy.

Anyway, I think that it would be a touch hypocritical to publish sex stuff when I am so critical of sex stuff. I’m not going to resort to cheap tactics for the sake of attention.

Isn’t it nice to know that you can read through an entire story without cheap tactics being thrown in your face? I think so.

But then, I always have ideas, because I love writing romance and sex is a huge part of that. Lots of ideas. Things that would be kind of fun to say: THIS IS CANNON XXX LOL

Nothing that would shock grandma, of course.

So I wonder: keep it in my private folder, or share it?

About Me

…

Autumn

My malfunction:

There was a time when my life sucked. I’d complain about particulars, but I’m also intensely secretive, so you’ll just have to make do with that statement: it really sucked.

I didn’t have any money, but I had a laptop and spent most of my time hanging out at places that provided wifi, reading silly webcomics, browsing Imgur, and watching Hulu (back when they were still primarily free). It was my only distraction from how much everything sucked.

I looked forward to updates, and laughed at everything funny. It got me through the darkness, not unscathed, but still alive. Sometimes just surviving is a major feat in and of itself.

Writing is my talent and my passion. It’s what I have to offer to the world at large, outside of my ‘happily ever after’ that my husband and I have crafted together. It’s how I give meaning to lingering pain that would otherwise feel meaningless. I write because I am a writer.

I cannot, however, ask for much money from it. My soul won’t permit it.

I won’t be JK Rowling or Stephenie Meyer. No millions, no movie deals, no fame.

What I fantasize is giving someone else the distraction they need during a crappy time in their life, to help get them through it alive.

It’s not my place to ever know if I actually accomplish that goal or not, as long as I keep putting stories “out there” to land wherever they will. No ego stroking for me.

It’s the reason why I only write happy endings.

And that is my malfunction; the reason why I don’t advertise or solicit reviews. I firmly believe that I will be found by the ones who need to find me, and when they do I need to be within their grasp.

That’s how I will repay my debt to the Universe.

About Me, About Writing

Finding Beauty in the Ordinary: A Writer’s Journey

Autumn

I’ve always believed that a talented enough writer could turn the topic of drying paint into a fascinating read, but there’s something that I didn’t quite realize until my late 20s:

You have to be the sort of person that sees the beauty in drying paint in the first place.

This is on the “no duh” side of epiphanies, but frankly, it’s not how I was taught to live.

I was raised on the “go to college, get married, spend the rest of your life balancing work and family” formula. Occasionally someone would advise to stop and smell the roses, but you weren’t supposed to notice the veins of color in the petals, or compose metaphors to describe the scent. You definitely weren’t supposed to study the thorns in great detail either.

Did I lose you? Do you understand?

I rebelled when I was 20. I don’t mean that I went to wild parties or did anything stupid; I’ve always been far too introverted for rambunctious crowds, and too conscientious for short-sighted acts. I went to the park late at night to play on the swing set and feel the cool summer air play through my hair. I danced in rainstorms. I fell madly in love with the simple things, like listening to crickets or watching a candle flame dance. I engaged.

And no one understood. How could they? I was surrounded by people who spent their entire lives dissociated from their experiences, and they just didn’t know what to do with me. I was labeled ‘weird’ and left at that.

Being a talented writer isn’t just knowing the mechanical skills, it’s an entire way of living. It’s being unafraid to see the world like no one else does. It’s embracing both the pleasure and the pain. When you, as a person, live a life of passion, it will automatically permeate your writing.

That’s one of the reasons why I feel so driven to write: I want to share how I experience life in a way that others will understand. I want to offer more than what can be seen on the surface.

Metaphorically speaking, I want to express the beauty I see in drying paint.

About Me

Foolish Fool

Autumn

I am a fool.

But we already knew that.

I am currently transcribing my WIP, and I decided to adopt a fairly intense pace of one chapter a day. This is my least favorite part of my writing process, so the faster I get it over with, the better.

Then I went and did something stupid: I let myself get talked into writing a second story at the same time.

The Reddit thing was a fluke. When I wrote and posted The Suit, I was the first response to an obscure prompt, and I figured that I’d get a few upvotes then move on. Over the next several hours, the prompt itself blew up BIG.

I was not, by any stretch of the imagination, in the running to be the most popular response. In fact, I seem to get downvoted a surprising amount, which amuses me more than anything else. However, the people who liked my story, seemed to REALLY like my story.

Including my husband. Which cinched it.

Since I already did the legwork to establish a solid universe, I decided to keep pursuing the story. And you know what I hate passionately? Authors who post three-quarters of a story before abandoning it. I am committed to finishing.

Now, between the kids and writing, I don’t seem to be doing much else with my days.

I’m worried that I may have outdone myself with this one.

About Me

Doreen Virtue

Autumn

Spring, 2008.

I was in the habit of bumming around Barnes and Noble, and took to exploring parts of the store that I had never ventured before. One day, the title Archangels & Ascended Masters caught my eye, and I wound up purchasing the book.

It was the archangels part that piqued my interest, and despite reading the whole book, I could never muster any appreciation for ascended masters. I was a thorough angel junkie by that point.

The book was my first exposure to non-Christian spirituality.

There were several things that happened in 2008 that sealed my fate in paganism, and after about a year of research I knew that I wasn’t remotely the New Age sort at all. I could never accept the idea that humanity was supposed to transcend basic emotions (aka lower vibrations) like fear and sadness, in order to live in the rather emotionless state of peace forever more. How boring. How stagnant. How pointless.

I quickly outgrew Doreen Virtue, viewing her as the equivalent of cotton candy who says a lot of feel-good fluff, but lacks any substance. She made for a good introduction, but the sort of stuff that I ultimately craved wasn’t going to be found in Barnes and Noble.

I suppose this illustrates how out-of-the-loop I am, but I finally learned that Doreen Virtue denounced New Age spirituality in 2017 and is now a born-again Christian.

Wow, isn’t it a funny world?

I wish that I could believe it was an honest-to-God conversion, because I don’t care about the particulars as much as I care about sincerity, and I don’t know many people who are actually sincere about their religion any more. Unfortunately, the heavy censorship that Doreen Virtue is continuing to enforce around herself triggers my cynicism, and I’m inclined to think not.

Of course, I’m coming to the party late and I don’t know much of the story, so don’t take my word for it — I just don’t get a particularly good feeling from her.

The question is, does this invalidate all of Doreen Virtue’s products? She was prolific,  and published an enormous number of books and card decks, which she now actively discourages people from reading/using. Am I left with tripe that I might as well burn?

No.

It was never Doreen Virtue who mattered in the first place. She shared her thoughts, but the important part was me. It was the way I felt and interpreted what I read, the parts that I liked and the parts that I dismissed, that made up the foundation of my spirituality. No matter who Doreen Virtue is or what she believes, I  am still me. She doesn’t have the power to change my story, and her books will always be part of my spiritual journey.

Like it or not, all of Doreen Virtue’s New Age products still have value, even if it’s just sentimental. There’s magic in honoring where you’ve been.

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Hawt contraband

 

About Me

INTP

Autumn

My personality type is INTP, which accounts for less than 6% of the female population. So when I say that I’m not a typical woman, I mean it; I’m not just trying to seem more interesting. Most women are ESFJ’s, making me the exact opposite of what everyone expects.

It’s the NT part that really makes me weird; intuitive yet detached. I firmly believe that there are at least three solutions to every problem, and if you can’t find the third one then you aren’t even trying. Self-sacrifice? Ha! I can find a way that will make everyone happy without any martyrs. Just watch me. Phishing for compassion is a waste of time, and I don’t care if you feel bad for me.

It freaks people out, because most of them have never met a woman like me. They want to stereotype and pigeonhole me, yet I never respond the way they expect me to. I am unpredictable and terrifying.

My personality type has frequently made me the target of bullying, and the general feeling of “I don’t belong with anyone, anywhere”, but despite that I’m enormously fond of it. I get a kick out of INTP memes, and I openly joke about my own “cold-hearted” nature. I have always prioritized being the sort of person *I* admire over pleasing anyone else, so at the end of the day I am satisfied with who I am without external approval. That’s what happens when you combine introverted with intuitive, thinking, and perceiving.

It is the reason why I write. I enjoy observation and introspection, and I see the philosophical value in every day life. I love the depth and complexity of human emotion, but I often approach it as something to be analyzed rather than swept away by.  I am, in many ways, a narrator rather than a character.

Who can tell a story better than a narrator?

INTP

About Me

Literary World

Autumn

Whenever I take a gander at the hottest new releases on Amazon, I can’t help but feel like there really isn’t a place for me in the literary world. It’s not that I don’t believe that I have the skill to write, but rather, I think that society’s tastes have drifted too far for my novels to have much appeal.

I’m old fashioned, and I like sentences that flow well together as an easy thought, that can be read out loud to others. I like to focus more on straightforward storytelling, and I don’t particularly care about impressing anyone with my command of purple prose. I’m nothing like Game of Thrones, and I don’t feel any desire to erase my own voice in order to imitate the bestsellers. I don’t have any points to prove; I’m just make-believing because I like to, and savoring the process of filling up page after page.

I really couldn’t care less about what celebrities or the New York Times say about anything. Their opinions are more of a disincentive, to be truthful, and I will feel like an epic failure as an individualist if I gained their approval.

Sometimes I think that the real world is all about hyper-conformity, and trying as hard as possible to be “3 edgy 5 you” to prove how thoroughly you belong in the 21st century. Me? I’m enamored with the basics of True Love and Motherhood, and it doesn’t bother me that I don’t particularly belong to any century.

Ultimately, it doesn’t much matter. I’ve never been one for approval seeking, and in many ways I’ve lived my life to the opposite. As long as I’m happy and fulfilled, nothing else really matters.

I just kind of wish that I wasn’t so gosh darn weird compared to everyone else. Why can’t there be more weirdos in the world?